The Spoiled Earth (The Stalker Trilogy #1)

Family saga about the lives of hard working Scottish coal miners and the complex relationships of the mine owner, his family and servants. After an explosion decimates their family, Mirrin and Kate Stalker struggle to earn enough for their Brother Drew to study law and escape the cycle of poverty.

Long Synopsis:

This novel, the first of a trilogy, is the magnificent saga of a family determined to survive. Blacklaw Colliery lay a half mile north of the small village of Blacklaw. A mile off, protected by a wealth of handsome oaks, Houston Lamont lived in a style befitting the mine owner. However nothing could protect him from the outcome of the massive explosion which wiped out a shift of 118 men. The pit disaster killed the Stalker menfolk but not their ambition. Alex Stalker's ambition of a better life for his only surviving son Drew fell on Kate: but it was to Mirrin, soft-shaped but as vital and stubborn as her father, to whom Kate turned for aid.
Look for the other books in this trilogy about Scottish life in the late nineteenth century in the Bookshare collection. They are: #2 The Hiring Fair and #3 The Dark Pasture.